With the pressures on today’s young people to succeed academically, some people believe that non-academic subjects at school (eg: physical education and cookery) should be removed from the syllabus so that children can concentrate wholly on academic subjects.

Almost any day of the week we can look at a newspaper and read articles discussing usefulness of non-academic subjects at school. There are several points of view on this matter. The first claims that subjects like physical education and cookery should be removed from the school program due to the fact that this can release more time for academic classes. An alternative point is based on the advantages of the skills children get from non-academic classes. On the one hand, it is obvious that maths, physics and others are the background of the education and without good academic knowledge further education is impossible. It does not matter whether you like it or not you have to recognize the fact that this knowledge is the basis for all the scientific disciplines. Moreover, nobody can deny that it is exceedingly difficult to replace academic subjects with something else totally. However, this attitude may cause a lot of concerns among people who believe that non-academic subjects are beneficial. Of crucial importance is how we define the matter in question. It is often said that children can obtain useful skills from cookery classes. But it is necessary to take into account all the circumstances of each individual case. From my point of view, the former opinion makes sense definitely, as it follows from my own experience. In any way, an attitude to this issue always depends on a particular person’s character and his or personal background.